The Mountain 1933

Curator: Standing before us is Emily Carr's "The Mountain," an oil on canvas painted in 1933. Editor: My initial impression is overwhelming. The sheer mass of the mountain, rendered in such intense blues and purples, it’s…monumental. Curator: Carr, heavily influenced by indigenous art and culture of the Pacific Northwest, sought to depict the spiritual power she found in nature. She lived and worked in British Columbia, and was deeply moved by the landscapes of the area. This painting, with its prominent peak looming over a small village, it could symbolize something? Editor: The brushstrokes themselves contribute so much. Notice how they follow the contours of the mountain, swirling and pulling the eye upwards. The texture she creates with the oil paint evokes a sense of geological movement, as if the mountain is breathing. Also the verticality of the canvas pushes my line of sight to the skies. Curator: Absolutely. Carr's work wasn't always well-received initially, struggling for recognition in a male-dominated art world and prevailing conventions for landscape paintings, but figures such as Lawren Harris saw great potential in it. She often juxtaposed indigenous settlements with the encroaching landscape, highlighting the tensions between civilization and nature in early twentieth-century Canada. Editor: I see the village at the base of the mountain almost as a fragile afterthought. And how the artist renders this mass, it isn't about accurate depiction, but instead, an emotional or felt reality. Do you agree with that reading of Carr´s choice in brushstrokes? Curator: Exactly, I think this depiction speaks of the history and complex identity Carr has developed through her lived experiences, rather than mere landscape depiction. In a way, this is modernism's way of dealing with indigineity, progress, nature. Editor: Reflecting on the painting, it seems so strange, alienating even in a sense, for Carr to portray an apparently 'simple' scenery, because there´s more than just mountain, oil and brush, is a complex web. Curator: Indeed. Carr’s “The Mountain” serves as a reminder of art's ability to engage in a broad socio-political narrative as a depiction of an landscape.